2025 is drawing to its close, with about 70 farmer blockades standing strong on key highway junctions and at all the border customs points of Greece. Farmers have declared that starting from Tuesday, December 23, and for a short period of days, they will facilitate a greater movement of vehicles through the blocked points in order to guarantee the safe and quick travel of Greeks to the countryside for the Christmas holidays.
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Indicative of the farmers' readiness is the fact that they have already made practical but also festive preparations both to welcome Christmas travelers through their blockades and to spend Christmas Day and New Year's Eve at their protest points. Farmers have removed their tractors from extra lanes, and all their camps have been decorated with Christmas ornaments, many of which are notably inspired by their own struggle.
© Nick Peters | FreshPlaza.com
The decision of farmers to facilitate traffic on the highways, if implemented with the support of the Greek police, could provide some relief for truck traffic as well, since fewer private vehicles would use the narrow, lower-speed bypass roads of the blocked highways. However, in recent days, repeated reports in the Greek media have shown that the police divert traffic onto such roads in many unnecessary cases, sometimes for many kilometers before the blockades.
© Nick Peters | FreshPlaza.com
Moreover, since the Greek government still refuses to accept a minimum set of demands proposed by the farmers in order for negotiations to begin, it seems that 2026 will find the blockades—the strongest of the last 35 years—without any decrease in intensity. The farmers' minimum demands are an electricity price cap, tax-free gas, guaranteed minimum prices for their products, and full compensation for income loss.
© Nick Peters | FreshPlaza.com
In the meantime, the farmers' struggle is being adopted by more and more worker and other social strata unions, which daily express their practical solidarity in many forms. There has already been a series of common militant acts, massive protests, and even four regional worker strikes in agricultural areas, with farmers and workers forming similar slogans such as "Workers plus farmers, voice and fist united" and common demands such as cheap foodstuffs of Greek origin for everyone.
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Their common struggle is expected to intensify in 2026. Mr. Sotiris Poulikogiannis, president of one of the strongest industry worker unions, that of Attica's Metalworking and Greece's Shipyards, made it clear at a meeting of major Greek worker unions with the Greek Deputy Minister of Rural Development and Food, held in Athens on Monday, December 22: "If farmers' demands are not fulfilled, not only will none turn against them, but more and more forces will enter the battle on the farmers' side."
© Nick Peters | FreshPlaza.com
Among the worker unions that have declared an alliance with the farmers are key ones for the broader agricultural economy, such as the Panhellenic Federation of Milk, Food and Beverage Workers and Employees, and even the Associations of Employees of the Ministry of Agriculture.
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